long may she reign
by AuraofDawn
Summary: Hira said her empress had been driven to avenge her father's murder and make the universe forever safe from the likes of Zarkon. But mere vengeance alone can't sustain that kind of power. At least, not forever. [Empress Allura AU]


The scene has been burned into Allura's memory for years, for she would never allow herself to forget. She would have lost her purpose, dishonored the memory of the fallen. Upon her dying breath she'll recall the look of sadness, failure, and resignation that her father had given her. Never before had he regarded her with such a loaded gaze, and he didn't live long enough to do it again.

Zarkon delivers his final ultimatum. The castleship shakes as her systems falter. The blood red and heated orange that every screen flashes with alights the faces of the helm in horror.

Her father, King Alfor, stands chief among them.

She tells him to use Voltron while they can, begs him to not give up so easily despite all the terror surrounding them. But the man's face is already so resigned, so dull of color, she only realizes later that he'd given up long before their fleet had been decimated. Why? She could only guess that he simply saw how outnumbered and outmaneuvered they were from the start, but pressed forward for her sake or that of their people. Conversely, if he hadn't gone through with it, an entire fleet could have been spared.

When she takes the throne, much later, she struggles to understand how and why he made such a choice for their people. But she does not dare follow his lead, lest she ever dare to do what he attempted on her.

He says nothing in response to her pleas, and simply strides to meet her directly. When he reaches for her cheek, like he had countless times before in her childhood, she instinctively buries her chin in his hand. His voice is as warm and soft as it had been in the juniberry fields, her playroom, and countless corners of the castle.

But when a brief hum pierces the air, breaking the magic of the moment, she feels remiss. In her reflections she learns that a crossroads presented by the Ancients became exposed and her reaction was tied between fear and relaxation. She knows how easy it would have been to miss, to overlook, but the powerful alchemy in her genes is so easily grasped by her inexperienced hands, she needn't think on it longer than a tick.

Instead of standing still and pleading, she leaps back, the glow of her father's alchemy left hovering in mid-air, ready to leap off his fingers. Right where her shoulder had been. Right where she could have allowed her head to droop and fall into an oblivious sleep.

Twin sets of impossibly bright blue eye widen at the other.

Her voice comes forth immediately, frighteningly, and aghast. "What are you doing?!"

What looked like a sad smile on her father's face a moment ago melted into a meek frown and increased her frustration.

"Allura, please-"

"You're giving up is what you're doing! So stop it! Hide Voltron away, but don't try to hide me! I have just as much obligation to Altea as you do!"

But her father's face presents the same amount of fierceness that she's inherited from him. "This is not about obligation, Allura, it is about staying alive to keep fulfilling those obligations! Or we will have nothing left to defend!"

The air rushes out of her lungs, her balled fists, her defensive stance. "...Do you truly believe that?"

"Believe what?"

"That Zarkon would destroy us, and Altea? After all you two have been through?"

The man can only look away. Not as a king betrayed by an ally, or even as a father pulled astray by responsibility, but as one lost to a friend. Allura finds herself unable to even begin fathoming how complex her father's feelings may be on the subject. But as an attribute to his strength as king, he shows none of them. Not even to her.

"I have to believe that any trace of the man I once called my friend is gone. We were at his funeral, Allura. Whatever poisoning that has occurred to his mind and body...I only hope that we can quell it."

"You don't think...something like that could be contagious, could you?"

"It would do our minds well not to dwell on the possibility, certainly." His eyes veer off into space, literally. Somewhere far away, Allura supposes, where he can—or has seen—the lengths of the taint that had doomed Zarkon and Honerva. "The one alchemist I knew who could have figured it out is dead, so we have to assume that we cannot. At least not with what little time we have left."

For all his usual optimism, Allura does not like his shades of surrender. Of course, he'd never do such a thing, this she knew for certain. What pained her more, despite her Ancients-given instinct and every move she made after, was that her father seemed determined to sacrifice himself.

In this vein, she determined to never do the same.

[A]

When her father leaves to face Zarkon for what may be the last time, she smiles not unlike he did when he tried to silence her before, and assures him that she will run if need be.

But she does not.

When word reaches her that the king has been defeated, that Zarkon stands to come after her next, that Altea's very fate hangs in the balance—

She stops, and breathes.

The entire room pauses with her, servants and officers trapped in various states of shock. After a long moment of uncertainty, only one dares to step forward: Coran.

"What are your orders, my queen?" he asks.

Her lips purse. "Not a queen. Empress."

The room seizes with quintessence. None of them can see it, of course, only she has the strength of the Ancients to see such. But the energy is undeniable as it hangs in the air with the loss of a king; the rise of an empress. Within the broad spectrum of emotions, all of them drop to their knees and bow at her feet.

 _"Long live Empress Allura."_

There is not to be a coronation until Zarkon is defeated, she orders. There will be no celebration as long as his brand of evil threatens the universe. This, she swears to the Ancients.

[A]

The system goes unnoticed at first. There is a war afoot, after all. After the standard period of mourning and ensuing battle, there is simply no time or place to dwell on the death of their king. Even then, the archiving of the royal family's accounts and history is standard procedure, and Allura has no need to be reminded of her father's voice and face so soon.

What she couldn't have known was just how far he had gone with his personal archive.

She's so ridden with tiredness one night that she gets off the lift at the wrong floor and finds herself in a field of juniberries, blooming in the gaze of a full sun that only slightly warmed a cool spring breeze. There, he is waiting. He stands in the glade in full armor, exactly as she last saw him.

"Daughter," he greets.

"...Father," she breathes.

He comes forward easily, quickly, as if he wasn't dead and reaches out for her chin just as before. "I had meant for this to await you 'til the end of the war—"

She leaps back with twice the gusto as the first incident. "When you tried to sedate me?"

He looks slightly sheepish. Allura wonders if its possible this version of him was 'saved' before their final confrontation. Either way, he never directly apologized for attempting to lock her away, and even now it didn't appear that he would.

"It was to keep you safe, to preserve our people," he explains.

"Then preserve them, not me! I am secondary to an entire planet, father. If you had succeeded in sending me away they would have all perished!" The very image makes her so angry her nails begin clawing into her clenched palm.

"...When you have children yourself, Allura, you'll see."

She scoffed. "Well, I don't. I'm still a child myself with a crown atop my head because of your lack of consideration."

"I am truly sorry, daughter. I would do anything to take this burden from you."

Something inside of her cracks, splintering the connection between her anger and her restraint. She'd been taught enough about diplomacy while the man was alive; yet here he was trying to placate her with the same approach from beyond the grave. An empress would take no pity, not while in war.

"And what can you do, as a mere specter? Nothing. I don't want to hear it. I am the empress, and I will not be afraid to use the power I have."

Alfor's eyes actually widen. Whether in fear or shock, Allura can't quite tell. She doesn't very much care to know. "I saved this, saved myself, to help you in any way I could," he offers. "You are too young to be faced with this but I can offer you all the guidance I have, what little comfort I can offer-"

"You could have helped by saving yourself! You could have retreated when I asked you to! You could stopped all this by not being so consumed by your emotions! But you didn't. And I must. By myself."

"Allura, please."

"Goodbye, father. For the last time."

With the smallest push of a button the idyllic scene wavers, the hues of blue sky and emerald glades flickering between the greys and blacks of the dull room until the colors dissipate entirely. Her father's outstretched hand and gaping frown are frozen in time and space as his data is seized and erased, destroying his form within tics. She does not turn to see it. She has no want to. She never will.

[A]

Soon enough, there is general want of a coronation.

Her people know better, of course, they have a great respect for all she has suffered so far and all she is doing to keep them ahead of the tides of war. But they are not the only ones who want to see a queen crowned. The ambassadors explain it to her as "a need to formally acknowledge her place as the leader of Altea across the galaxy, if not the universe."

Why the rest of the galaxy has such a pressing need for a needlessly opulent ceremony in these times was beyond her. Ancients knew they only wanted an invitation to a wildly formal party, front seats at ceremony, and a blatant excuse to forget about the war effort for even a moment. How could they be so blind to the real issue? So many of their resources were becoming scare-she had long before ordered Altea to undergo voluntary rationing in order to conserve as much as possible.

And what could a gigantic political event do but serve as a giant target for Zarkon and his forces to attack?

Allura does what she has since the day of her father's death and tells them to wait until the day that Zarkon dies, again.

She puts it off spectacularly well, actually. Since the initial fight with Zarkon and his ensuing forces, time began to actively outrace her. The race to intercept him before any more planets could be subject to his pursuit of quintessence had been touch and go. Upon his death and disposal of his most loyal forces, the heads of the Galran hydra seemed to become ever-multiplying, and toppling each self-appointed ruler that followed demanded all of her focus.

But she would not break her first promise to her people as empress, even if she had yet to take her vows in front of the Temple of the Ancients.

She is still so young-though no one dares call her princess any longer-she finds herself still falling to the feeling of needing guidance. Running Altea she had been trained for so extensively she could do it in her sleep. But running an active war effort? Rallying troops and battle stations from what had been a long period of peace? She hasn't even seen the surface of Altea herself in vargas. She simply can't afford to go. But Altea can't afford to go on without its empress, either.

Was she being too careful, like her father had been when he tried to send her away? Never would she admit to being so cowardly, but finding the strength to not allow herself to be so was another threat entirely.

In order to surely prevent herself from repeating her father's mistakes, she needed something new. A more vital, sure method to use or display that would challenge any force that dared try to take her and her people down again. Only then she would be fit to be an empress.

In these times, she asks her attendants, generals, and advisers to leave her be; wandering the great halls of the castleship as she ponders her newfound power. Her abruptly, tragically received power.

Quiznak, she hadn't even bothered to change out her tiara yet, she realized as she brushed the surface of the tiny Balmera shard. It was a part of her oath at this point, however. Not until she could safely assume the throne and allow her people to celebrate would she feel comfortable even beginning to part with her beloved circlet. With its small piece of crystal, glowing endlessly her entire life so far, it was hard not to get attached.

She finds herself in several elevators, heading ever downward, avoiding as many servants as she can. Eventually, she reaches a depth of level few are allowed in, and the quiet she so desired was found. In the hangars where her father had labored day and night, for vargas upon vargas before and after her birth, until his unbelievable feat had been accomplished. And here they still stood, as sturdy as the first time he'd introduced them to the few that became their first paladins.

She winds up allowing herself to fall into a seat in the window overlooking the garage, just as her father had overlooked their construction so long ago. But she couldn't stand to sit. Her father had wanted to sit-sit back and hide while Altea and the rest of the galaxy burned. Well, not anymore.

Her father and mother are gone and only she is left to keep Altea safe. If giving her the motivation to avenge them had been their first gift, Voltron would be their second.

Blaytz and others still pilot their respective lions when the need truly arises, but their first loyalties lie with their people and Allura does not truly blame them. Zarkon's betrayal had shaken their once-model alliance to its core, and the eyes of the galaxy had not seen Voltron formed in decaphebs. Allura had hoped it wouldn't need them, honestly, because the need to be the only force taking down Zarkon and his loyal Galra had fueled her so well thus far. But looking at them all in a row, sitting empty, eyes dark, heads hanging limply…it simply wasn't their native state. They were meant to be brimming with life, eyes alight in their golden hues and claws glinting with the endless starlight of open space.

Her father and Zarkon's showdown leaves a duo of gaping holes in Voltron's company that forces their current uselessness. Allura has hesitated finding new paladins for this very reason. If it happened once, it could happen again, and she is not about to repeat her father's mistakes. In fleeting moments she is tempted to continue his legacy as a paladin, to strengthen the bond her family holds with the Red Lion, but she is increasingly confounded by her share of responsibility to Voltron as a whole. She is a leader to her people, Voltron was created by her people's technology, lent to the others for a universal purpose.

Now, with that purpose shaken, she must reassert the strength of the lions and her people. But she would not be handing over the reins of the most powerful weapon the universe had known. Not like her father had done.

And she can only do such with the Black Lion.

It merely sits there in the hangar, waiting, with its brethren at it's side. When she was younger she looked up at them and felt small. Now, looking down at them from what was to be her throne, she was at eye level. They could see her as clearly and closely as she could see them. She could feel them. They assured her she was not imagining it. There's a gold flash and then nothing but darkness, punctuated by the steady roar of a lion.

She wakes, and is surrounded by dark violet light.

[A]

When the time of peace finally arrives, the empire is strong and larger than any other in known intergalactic history. Her throne is secure, her people are happy, and Altea thrives.

But it isn't enough.

She can feel what is threatening to take over her and her people: comfort. Negligence. Contentment. She knows what they have will not last if they are not careful, not prophetic. After all, the greatest empires tended to fall at their own feet, rather than at the hands of any other's. Even the Galra were such—Zarkon would have had his life, ruling in alliance with her father and herself as a princess still. But instead he had become greedy, ridden with violent evil, and cost his people all chance of peace and a home planet.

Allura must ensure no more Zarkons come into being, at all. But her people are plateauing. Her commanders aren't making progress. The alchemists aren't producing any results. She isn't happy.

Remaining pockets of Galra are rallying to their own cause, citing some twisted form of oppression. And what could they cite? The fact that their last emperor had murdered Altea's last king in nothing but cold blood? That Allura had spent half a phoeb running for her life because his army sought to do the same to her?

That they could twist themselves so far and call it justice only threw more disrespect onto her family name.

She knows what they want. They want her to sully her own name by pursuing them—by giving them more reason to resist. Contrary to popular belief, Allura doesn't desire the spilling of any more blood, honestly. She watched her father confront the surefire sacrifice of himself as some kind of warrior-like rite. But those ways—in the eyes of Altea's ever-advancing alchemy at the forefront of the known universe—would have to come to an end. And her reign would see to it.

So she confronts her commanders, scientists, councilors, with the very challenge: strategize the removal of violence from all their movements. The best idea would become a model to not only Altea's fight for lasting peace, but to every galaxy where it could be used successfully.

Not since the defeat of Zarkon had Allura seen her people become so steadfast.

When the final solutions are presented to her, the Hoktril stands far apart from the others. The issues it presents—requiring careful installation, complications or tampering, constant care—are easily addressed by the army's proposals of altered contact techniques, combined with the ambassadors' new outreach methods. Some are none too pleased with the idea of an army ceasing to act like an army—but their empress is keen to remind them that this could all be a temporary solution barring any further resistance or complications.

The need for Altea or protect itself would always be necessary, she assured them. She was not to allow what had happened to her parents and Daibazzal happen again. Not for as long as she lived.

Pending another round of research and development from her top alchemists, she doesn't plan on dying anytime soon. Not while Altea still has need of her.

[A]

The Paladins approach. Blaytz carries a cane, Trigel walks with a slow gait, and Gyrgan is missing an eye. The differences in biology helped some and hindered others, themselves no exceptions. Thus, Allura had made sure to keep herself in prime condition, so as not to fail her people and be replaced, as some of them had.

Still, they regarded her as something of a young niece, for which she appreciated. Most of the time.

They all stopped short of the dais and bowed. She nodded and they rose.

"Allura—!" Blaytz began, arms stretched out like a hug.

The empress didn't move. "What brings you here on such an ordinary occasion?" she asked.

"We wanted to see our favorite royal!"

He's elbowed in the side. Princess Allura, hiding in her mother's robes, would have giggled far too loudly. Empress Allura scarcely blinks.

"...And to speak with you regarding intergalactic matters," Trigel finished.

Allura's brow raised cautiously. "Should I have my councilors present, then? If there is some policy you wish to review we should have the proper legal presence with us, yes?"

"No, no, its less about policy and more about...consideration, Allura."

"I don't quite follow."

"Voltron, 'Lura. We need to talk about Voltron," Gyrgan asserted.

"Ah, yes. I did think our recent missions left a lot to be desired, performance-wise, but it's nothing we can't fix with some minor adjustments. Blaytz, did you receive the tonic my alchemists sent you?"

The blue paladin scratched his head. "Yeah, about that-"

"Was it mishandled? They left very specific instructions for application. If that leg is ever going to heal you must follow them precisely."

"Allura, it's been bum for over a phoeb now; it's not going to get any better," he shrugged noncommittally. "I'm just past my prime is all."

She scoffed. "Nonsense. My alchemists can have you back to before your prime in vargas, if you simply follow their prescription. The same goes for that eye implant General Iona offered you, Gyrgan."

The yellow paladin shrugged. "I've already learned how to see with one eye—and I don't want anyone pokin' round my head anymore."

"But if you intend to keep flying the yellow lion it will only get worse. Our alchemy can only compensate so much-

"Allura, you're not listening!" Trigel burst out.

She quiets. They all do. None of them outright look scared but the most determined is Trigel. After a long moment, Allura exhales.

"...Empress."

The silence widens. All of their eyes meet hers.

"I have not been your darling child or princess for some time now. Even before my father's murder. I am your empress and you will address me as such—especially when you have complaints. Is that understood?"

None of them nod. A uniform tilt of the chin is all they give her.

"If you feel unfit to fly the lions we will simply seek out new paladins, then. I was beginning to feel stifled by your outdated strategies anyway."

Trigel's chin lowered, but eye glare remained in cobat with Allura's. "You're an empress. Blaytz means leader. Gyrgan is his planet's strongest warrior. We are equals, as the paladins were always meant to be. We consider you input, as you should ours."

"Is that a threat, Trigel? I must say, I really expected more from my favorite ambassador. Your jokes were sometimes hilarious."

None of them laugh.

"The lions will be leaving with us," Blaytz asserted.

It's Allura's turn to laugh. A short, scoffing thing, but it cuts the threat in half to fall at the paladins' feet. "The lions were built by Altea's last king and thus belong to her, if not me because I am his only child and the leader of Voltron. You can but try to take them from us."

The trio uniformly glare.

"We are bonded with them and you cannot do anything to sever that bond!" Gyrgan roars.

Allura's lips shift into a smirk. "Can I?"

A chill goes through three spines simultaneously. In their hangars, three lions growl in a low-burning rage.

It is Coran who shuttles the paladins out of the room before another barb can be thrown by either party. Still a peacekeeper, the old man was, but Allura had long before urged him to leave court and attend to his own retirement while she set about keeping the peace. Her father had only instructed him to watch over her during wartime, of course. There was no need to have a glorified uncle badgering very decision she made, not anymore.

"Do you really think it will be possible to make the lions re-bond while their paladins are still alive?" he asked when they were alone in the throne room.

"I don't know for sure," she admits. "We will have to test that theory. For now...we must keep eyes on them."

[A]

Her hair has been falling out. First she simply chalks it off to stress but soon the loose strands cause her usual volume to falter and it becomes a gigantic mess of static that serve no purpose but to distract her from her work. So she has it sliced off by the nearest attendant and styled into something she won't even have to put up.

When someone—an ambassador? A lady of the court? They weren't completely Altean, and they weren't important—remarks upon the shame that her beautiful locks are no more, Allura remarks that it's a shame her father was murdered and made her a young empress.

The entire chamber goes quiet.

After that, she takes to wearing more stylized wigs for diplomatic occasions. It would take little effort, and she could experiment with style as much as she liked, even as her natural hair would continue to fail her. Her attendants never mention her appearance again.

At some point, her marks begin to grow. Besides a single inquiry to her doctors on the health implications of it, she makes no mention of it to those that surround her. Some of her inner court begin to attribute it to her age and power—no other Altean royal had reigned as long as she now had, so of course she was beginning to look as none before her.

She only begins considering these signs when her doctors bring them up again, much later.

"My supreme empress...we have an issue which we would like to discuss with you," the head of a whole troop of them faced her, with a presentation waiting alongside them.

Their empress nodded. "Proceed."

"Although your majesty has demonstrated no physical or biological signs of aging, the alchemists have raised a very important point about your quintessence therapy."

"Is there a new development? Should I have a test scheduled?"

"There is no news to report in their genetic research, no. But rather, the news they spoke of was more of the preventative nature," another one added.

"Yes?"

"The team overlooking your charts has begun to question the longevity of your health, specifically, your reproductive health."

"The last I saw everything was fine," she raised a white eyebrow.

"Yes, but given the length of time you've been undergoing treatment compared to the average Altean lifespan and the results of other known quintessence treatments," the man visibly took a heavy breath, "we believe you may be approaching the eve of your fertility, highness."

"But this is all hypothetical? My last charts were impeccable, you told me so yourself."

The troop began to collectively look sheepish. Several sets of eyes sought out others, but none of them settled on any of comfort.

"Empress," a small-looking one began, "we simply want to keep you updated on the possible future of Altea's throne—"

"And I will tell you what I've told every interfering ambassador, counselor, and adviser since I took the throne: I will marry and have child when I so please, if I so please. When and if that day approaches, Altea will be the first to know."

One that had avoided speaking thus far finally leapt to the front of the group with a smile. "Of course, may we remind that you need only say the word and our fertility team can begin the process of incubating a child that would be entirely yours, with or without another donor," they said.

"Yes," Allura's tone settled with the affirming information. "Such an option has been presented to me numerous times. It is the most tempting option to me personally, I must say. When the time is right I will instruct you to do so. For now, continue your research as needed."

The rack of lab coats filed out of the chamber as uniformly as their research appeared. Their empress simply remained in silence, caught in her own considerations.

Heirs. She'd been raised to prepare for such a thing—her parents the perfect posters for romance in a royal court remiss with arrangements and underhanded meddling in the name of security and duty. They had raised her to never feel pressured about her own pursuits, romantic or otherwise, but the reality remained that Altea was an monarchy, and part of their duty had been fulfilled in giving birth to her, as she would need to provide another to follow herself.

But three thousand years of rule they had not prepared her for. Nor the war that had put her on the throne too soon, or the countless allies she'd been forced to betray and abandon in order to keep her empire moving forward. She thought of her people so fondly, so closely, she couldn't imagine another soul interfering with that bond. Her father had nearly thrown away their chance to defeat Zarkon because he sought to protect her to fiercely.

Though she loved and missed him for all the quintessence in the universe, she was sworn to avoid repeating his mistakes. the love of a child being chief of them.

Perhaps someday when the empire was truly peaceful, when rebels ceased to exist and all of Altea's young leaders and innovators did not require her constant surveillance, she'd consider taking some few young souls under her wing. Orphans by chance, perhaps. All the peace in the reality would not stop accidents.

[A]

As Allura deigns to sit in her throne atop the dais, it is Commander Hira that opens the day's address.

"Empress," she bowed deeply. Hira's loyalty was renowned to be the deepest amongst her younger commanders, which Allura appreciated dearly. "Your audience is ready to begin."

"Send them in," a long sweep of sharpened nails without so much as a tilt of her pointed chin or loose bangs

The face of a young female Altean peeks out from behind the elegant curtains of the audience chamber, violet eyes wide with uneasiness.

"Your Majesty," she curtsies deeply and dares not meet the eyes of her monarch for the longest time. "I promise not to take up too much of your time, but, I seek some helpful information."

"My child, knowledge is the gift we all seek out most importantly, so please do not belittle what precious facts you must be after. If I can be of assistance to you, I will." Her smile was warm and would have been tinted with dimples had she any lines about her youthful features.

The girl still stemmed with nervousness that the empress felt in abundance, but could only feel sorry for. The child simply had not been in audience with such highly titled—or powerful—beings before. But such was why she still kept her throne room open to civilians all throughout the Altean empire—from full-blooded Alteans to those from the farthest colony, even after ten thousand years.

"Y-yes, thank you," the stutter and then a frightened look, "I-I mean, it is more like people that I seek. My younger brother, to be specific."

"Your brother?" She consulted the small screen embedded in her throne. Records did reflect a younger sibling. "Is he missing? Have search parties been gathered? Have you contacted your local militia?"

"I don't believe he is missing, per se, but rather... I wish to see him, and I have no way to do so currently," she began wringing her small hands, porcelain, unscathed things, reflective of a simplistic life free of hard work. "A few vargas ago he was conscripted into the alchemist's guild—our parents were selected when we were both young, so it runs in the family. I don't obviously have the capability, I was being tested decaphebs before Bandor was taken as soon as he was old enough, but-"

The empress' brow raised lightly. "What is it? You know the selection is the highest honor. Those that are chosen do some of our most vital alchemic work, and they are the most fit for the duty."

"I know there are plenty of alchemists on our colony, so I don't see why Bandor and our parents had to leave it completely? And so many from the same family is unheard of there—first it was them, and now—h-he was all I had left."

Her eyes welled up with tears that glistened even in what little natural light the chamber held. "I just... I miss them so much. If I could just talk to them-"

"You know that is forbidden. To distract them from their work would damage the empire. Even the smallest inconvenience-

"Empress, please! If I can't see them, I simply want to speak with them! Even writing would be better than what I have now, which is nothing but painful loneliness!

The chamber silences. Even the curtains cease to rustle at all. At her post, in position to intervene as necessary, Hira takes a deep breath. They always tried to bargain.

The girl's small hands clamped over her mouth, and she knew she had gone too far.

Allura's hands, thin and bony as they had become, clenched around the armrests of her throne.

"I know you would not raise your voice to your empress had you not sound reason to, Romelle. So I will not take that into account. But it seems to be I do need to provide you with some further information to make you understand why I cannot grant your request.

Alchemy is our greatest achievement; It drives us, keeps our empire and our people strong. If even one alchemist were to be kept from their responsibilities for whatever reason, then their work would fall to another, and another, until the burden spread to an entire guild. Do you know what would happen then, child?"

Romelle remained speechless.

"Would you push the pain you say you suffer unto another family that would otherwise remain together, their skills unneeded as the empire flourishes around them?"

Romelle shrank back, eyes at their widest yet, expressing her horror at the polished floor to reflect her own shame.

"N-no..."

Allura's lips settled into an exceedingly thin line. "Then you haven't truly known the kind of pain and loss that a family's sacrifice can amount to."

"I-I'm so sorry, empress, I hadn't thought-" hadn't considered the thousands of years that she had been robbed of, because she had the unluckiness to be born in an era where senseless violence bred to no end, and stole countless time from her and her parents. Now, this girl who would never know the same needless loss had the audacity to complain about the very system that kept her fed, idle, and safe.

"Exactly. That is why I make it my business to know; to spare as many of my citizens from this burden as possible. I'm sorry you cannot be with you family, Romelle, but this is a burden you must be the sole bearer of, so that countless others will not be forced to share it."

"Yes, empress."

The girl's head droops the floor as she kneels far deeper than when she entered before she is escorted out. The guards pull her up roughly but she makes no effort to resist. She knows how far she's gone. Her blonde pigtails only just disappear behind the curtains before the empress regards her commander.

"Send her to one of the mining colonies in the Arus system. Perhaps then her time will not be so shallowly spent on socializing and more on learning the value of our empire's hard work. If she resists any further, install a hoktril and see that she has no memory of that family."

The ghost of a smile blooms on Hira's face mid-bow. "As you will it, empress."

Just as she wills her own people to rally from the brink of darkness and build a beacon for all the universe the see. Even if they could not see or understand, she could make them. And she would.

[epilogue]

The empress sighed. Her subject clearly had a good, quick mind. Romelle would have made a good alchemist, had she the ability the rest of her family clearly possessed. Had her thoughts not led her astray, she may have grown to contribute to the empire's scholars and tacticians. The strength she displayed to even address her empress in such a way was a nerve Allura admired, truly. It had taken the same astounding nerve on her own part to leap out of her father's trance, to disobey his direct order in front of command. A subject like Romelle would have been useful even in Voltron; so useless now that peace had been achieved, and most of her lions missing.

The Guns of Gamara come as a surprise. That even a few Alteans would possess the gall to openly oppose the empress that had fought so much, sacrificed so much, given so much-it was a direct insult so personal she dared not allow herself to dissolve into complete anger. It would consume her thinking, as her father once had been. She needed a clear, logistical mind to serve her best. It does not surprise her to hear of other races becoming ungrateful and joining their rank, of course.

What does surprise her, are rumors of Galra. Had she been too hasty, too steadfast in her submission of their race? Had she been too merciful in allowing the survivors to intermix with other races? Were those thousand-year-old generations still holding grudges against her?

The only thing that truly worries her is the rumors of their leader.

Zarkon had no heirs. He and Honerva had none, and the latter failed to resurrect as the former had. Whomever this so-called "galra prince" claimed to be could be nothing but a charlatan aspiring to the title.

If there was one thing Allura had learned, it was that a figurehead was all any revolution truly needed to become legitimate. If there was truly any 'royalty' that dared to publicly oppose her, she would see to their defeat assuredly, or she would die trying.


End file.
